DustanT wrote:Wow lots of info to read through here thanks a lot guys. Can someone explain the incentives? I called a dealer near me and asked if I could get some info on a leaf they asked what was a leaf. Needless to say I said uh never mind and hung up. What is the real price of the car and how is the incentive applied.
Although cwerdna's info is correct (the last link was wonderfully concise), from your post history, I'm guessing you need a little bit more guidance?
With new leaf's, the incentives are the same, but applied differently depending on whether you purchase or lease the leaf.
- If you buy the car, you pay the negotiated price (let's say $25k as an example), plus tax + title + delivery fees. The total out the door price might be ~$28k. You can finance that or pay cash. When you file your 2017 tax return sometime in 2018, you'll claim the Federal tax rebate then and deduct $7500 from your tax liability (have your tax preparer explain this) at that time. Same with any state tax rebates. The electric utility discount programs are applied at the time you register with your utilities and affect your electricity rates as soon as you register.
- if you lease the car, the federal tax rebate is actually taken by NMAC and used to reduce the "capital cost" of the lease (along with any NMAC lease incentives. They use that capital cost and pre-determined residual value (california Nissan dealers said that NMAC forbids them from adjusting this) to calculate your down-payment and monthly payments.
The end result (assuming you qualify for the full $7500 federal tax rebate and have good credit) is that your total lease payments [ plus residual value + sales tax ] should be pretty close (minus some lease profit) to what the purchase price would've been. If we take the assumed out-the-door-price of $28k - $7500 = ~$20.5k after fees and rebates.
This is a gross simplification, the actual dollar amounts will vary of course.
Hope this helps!